The male's legs were wrapped around Jeremy's waist, preventing him from pulling out as they both came down from their orgasm. Jeremy straighten up, smiling down at his partner. "This just keeps getting better." Alix continued holding him inside him.

From that first time, only a few months ago, Jeremy had realized that Alix liked looking up at him, like this. Every few days since then they had sex together, usually in the bed Alix had in the office, and it almost always ended with Jeremy kneeling between his legs, held in this position for long moments afterward.

Alix smiled back at him, but his eyes weren't as jovial as he'd expected.

"Is everything alright?" Jeremy asked.

"Everything's fine," Alix replied, but again, Jeremy could tell he was keeping something back. "How are the humans doing?"

"Humans? How would I know how they are doing?"

"Don't you go see them?"

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "No. As far as I'm concerned, we're wasting time sending them to the incarceration colony. We should just space them."

"Did they reveal who sent them?"

Jeremy tilted his head. "Again, I don't care. I know who sent them. The fact they wont admit it doesn't change that. Alix, what's wrong?"

Alix was quiet.

Jeremy ran his hands through the male's leg fur. "Please, talk to me."

"Nothing's wrong, not really. I'm just going to miss this; engineering, you, the ship." He untangled his legs, but Jeremy didn't move.

"What do you mean, you're going to miss this?"

Alix pulled himself away, and turned so he was leaning against the wall. "I'm leaving. When we get to FarSpace station, I'm going to hop on a freighter heading back to Kelser."

Alix looked at him, smiling, and this time there was mirth in his eyes. "You are."

"Me? I can't be in charge, I'm just your assistant."

"My assistant?" Alix laughed. "Is that what you thought you were?"

"Well, yes. I followed you around, doing the work you told me to, the way to told me to do it."

"I don't have assistants. As far as I'm concerned, they are just a waste of space. You were my apprentice."

"What?"

Alix nodded, pulled Jeremy close, and leaned against him. "I have to admit, when you first told me you want me to teach you, I figured I'd show you enough so you could do tech work and leave it at that, but you are a good engineer. I know I didn't say it, back then, but you did do good work with the repairs, especially considering you weren't familiar with our technology.

"When I decided you were too talented to be limited to a tech, I knew eventually you'd take over for me here. You've been ready for a while now, but I've been postponing it - Easy to do when we're nowhere near a way to get back home." He nuzzled Jeremy. "The sex with you has made it difficult for me to reach this decision."

"Then why leave? We can both be in charge. I don't want to kick you out."

"You're not. It's my decision. It's time for me to go back home. I've been in space over twenty years, with nothing more than the occasional stopover at Kelser. I miss seeing the sky, and it's time for me to start my own hunt."

"Your hunt? For what?"

"For my Heart. I love it here, but it's out there, somewhere. And I long to find it. Engineering is going to be in your hands now, good hands, so I can leave in peace."

Jeremy didn't know what to say, so he wrapped an arm around Alix's shoulders, and held him close.

Story Details

Jeremy went to space to escape the misery of Earth, He went as far from Earth as he could because there was hardly anything keeping him there. He found himself on a space station at the outer edge of Human territory, an engineer helping the scientists working on Anti-Matter research. Content in his work he wasn't looking for anything more, so the day a Kelsirian merchant ship limps to the station in need to repairs, and he meets the captain of the ship, he isn't ready for the ways in which that will change his life.

And eventually, the course of two species' history.

This is the first draft of something that will eventually be turned into a trilogy.